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I recently bought a Nuvi 850. Here's my advice for what it's worth.
The dependable value of a Nav system comes from the fundamentals.
* Receiver
* Maps
* Routing Engine
* Display
* User Interface
Garmin does a solid job in all these areas. But that's not why you're paying a premium for an 800 series Nuvi.
This model has a couple of "nice to have" features that were introduced on the 700 series of Nuvi's.
* Where Am I
* Where's My Car
Both are very well implemented and can be very handy. But again, all of the stuff I mentioned so far can be found in a Nuvi costing $300 less.
So what are you paying a premium for?
* Bid Recognition
* User Replaceable Battery
* Front Mounted Speakers
Well, the front mounted speakers are unexcited drowned out by moderate road noise. So, I wouldn't pay a nickel for that. The only right sound solution remains the FM transmitter that everyone complains about. It works OK for me, in my car, in my position. Your mileage may vary.
The user replaceable battery is expedient. For $30 you can carry a spare battery and go totally wireless in the car or exhaust the Nuvi for 8 hours of walking around a city. I'd pay for that. In fact, every portable design should have user replaceable batteries.
OK, that leaves the "Astronomical Kahuna" feature, notify recognition. Don't acquire the hype from the professional reviews or some of the hosanna's being thrown around in Amazon reviews.
Does it work? Yes, it works amazingly well. In a uninteresting quiet environment.
With moderate road noise or even indoors with a TV at extreme volume 15 feet away the thing to gets confused about what it's "hearing". It should have a microphone with gross sensitivity and high directionality to veil out fraudulent noise. A runt DSP noise filtering wouldn't distress either. Unfortunately, the standard piezo mic that Garmin also uses for bluetooth phone calls will catch up any sound coming from any direction. The result is that protest recognition becomes an excercise in frustration.
Still, I'm gonna hold the darned thing. I'll simply enter destinations in the detached of my home, office, hotel room, or a restaurant before heading out on the road. The remote will live in my briefcase. It does keep you from a lot of tiring, keyboard entry. But, it is not the mobile safety feature that reviews would have you occupy since state commands are all but useless in a car. You can collect essentially the same features in a Nuvi 760 and attach yourself $300.
Your decision.
EDIT: Update.....OK maybe I was a bit harsh first time round. I have found that the unit will reply with moderate background noise.....some of the time.....if you bawl at it. It appears to have the ability to lock in on the loudest sound it "hears". So, if you are relatively stop to the microphone and deny really loud (shout), it does acknowledge some of the time.
On the upside, connecting to the Garmin website was very easy. I registered the 850, downloaded the newest firmware, and downloaded/installed the latest maps (2009), all in about ten mintues without a glitch.
I am a Realtor and have been using my Garmin GPS for almost four years. (It was the 2720 and had cost $999 when I bought it.) It's invaluable to me in my business. Today it died as I was previewing a dozen homes and I went attend to where I bought it originally and picked up an 850. Boy, am I disappointed!
The novel graphics will select some getting traditional to, but that's not the spot. With the newer technology and all the bells and whistles, I had expected this unit to be MORE intuitive than my venerable one. Turns out it's not. Twice it told me it could not glean addresses in older neighborhoods where my used Garmin never had a quandary. I had to guess my design across strange areas to fetch them and, obvious enough, once I got there, the street names registered on my veil. I immediately saw what happened but was shrinking that Garmin hadn't picked up the shrimp differences.
One street is named McLain Road. I typed in Mclain (runt "l") and it couldn't acquire it. The veteran Garmin faded all upper-case letters, so it found every address regardless of upper or lower case. This one obviously needs you to know which to employ -- very frustrating. The second one is spelled Hollowbrooke Lane. I typed in in every which plan I could deem of -- Hollow Brooke Lane, Hollow Brook Lane, Hollowbrook Lane, etc. Now that I'm home and could play with it a minute, positive enough, it found it. I should have typed in "Ln" instead of Lane and it had Hollowbrooke without the "e." When I had typed in Hollowbrook Lane, it couldn't derive it because I spelled out the word Lane. Again, the mature Garmin knew that Lane and Ln were the same thing.
Another very annoying thing I found missing on this current one which was on my obsolete Garmin was the prove of streets. Typically, each street will demonstrate up as I earn advance it, whether I'm turning onto it or not. With the 850 it doesn't expose streets unless they are major thoroughfares. I finally clicked on the "plus" button twice in succession and it started to give me lines (which represented streets), but it rarely showed the name of the street. Again, the dilapidated Garmin showed every street you came up to.
The impart prompts are also unreliable. Several times the mutter prompt did not match up with the shroud and if I tried to respond based on what I saw on the cover (for example, a city was on the shroud and the content was asking for a street address), I could not secure it to sync and had to inaugurate all over or (more often than not) unbiased gave up and tapped the information into the GPS. Again, a nice belief but frustrating if it's not working properly!
I can't figure out why this newer model would be LESS intuitive than the customary system. I'll play with it for a few days, but at the trace I paid, I won't be keeping it very long if I can't figure out how to create this work better.
And, not to beat a tiresome horse here, but I'm panicked that the unit doesn't approach with a carrying case. I impartial bought my daughter a nuvi 350 last week for her birthday and it cost a part of what the 850 cost -- and it had a carrying case! SHAME on you, Garmin!
This unit functions perfectly as it is described. The voice-activation is nearly perfect. Probably one of the best implementations to date that I can remember. The draw is a bit under-detailed for the impress but it gets you where you need to go. Direct commands from the unit are very easy to understand. Controls are easy to navigate as are the menu options. One thing that I deem is a bit ridiculous is the absence of Bluetooth Hands-Free calling. For $800 they could have included that and it is the reason that I gave it four stars instead of 5. Many of the options included with the arrangement are useless to me to be fair. Games? Report viewer? MP3 player? I don't need any of these but the voice-commands for unit control are awesome.
If you have the money to bewitch this unit, find it... if not examine at some of the lower-priced 700-series Nuvi's
